Could the name and contents of this candy be violating the FDA’s “jelly bean” rule?

The “jelly bean” rule refers to FDA’s fortification policy,* which aims to discourage food and beverage makers from adding vitamins to “foods of minimal nutritional value” (a.k.a. junk foods) so they can be marketed as healthy.

The policy is explicit. The FDA does not consider it appropriate to add nutrients to candies and beverages.

Here’s what the article says about what’s in it:

Smartcandy is formulated with a blend of Vitamin A for eye health, three B vitamins to support converting sugar and carbohydrates into sustained energy, and vitamin C for immunity. The trans fat-, high-fructose corn syrup-free candies come in four varieties: sweet and sour gummies; and Froot, a proprietary snack with a candy shell and a layer of yogurt encasing a strawberry or orange center.

This is the visionary leader of the snacking world, it’s the one they listen to and admire. He can make a three point shot with his eyes closed, build the best fort you’ve ever seen, or solve an algebra question like it was a nursery rhyme, this flavor packed snack will push you to achieve anything!

If SmartCandy can get away with this, won’t Coca-Cola and Pepsi be next?

Candy is candy and has an place in kids’s diets—occasionally. But a health food that makes kids do better in school? I’d like to see the evidence for that.

Catherine Price gives us a journalist’s entertaining romp through the fascinating history of the discovery of vitamins, and their use and marketing as objects of health obsession. Faith in vitamins, she advises, should be tempered by scientific uncertainty and dietary complexity, and the understanding that foods are better sources than pills.

This is the second excellent book I know of with that title. This one came out in 1996. It focused on supplements and their marketing.

Both have interesting things to say about why so many of us take vitamin supplements, regardless of the lack of evidence that they do us much good.

As I keep observing, there just isn’t much evidence that vitamin supplements make healthy people healthier.

Over the weekend, the New York Times carried a front-page story about liver damage caused by an herbal supplement advertised as a “fat burner.”

It pointed out that as a result of a 1994 act of Congress, such products are virtually unregulated. No federal agency pays much attention to their contents or claims, and Congress only lets the FDA take action against them after they are found to be harmful.

Fortunately, vitamin and mineral supplements rarely cause harm. But the question of whether they do any good continues to trouble researchers. As NutraIngredients_USA summarizes the latest rounds of research,

Stop wasting money on supplements, say physicians. Stop trying to position supplements as cures for disease, say industry groups. An editorial panel of medical doctors (MDs) says the case is now closed for multivitamins: they don’t help well-nourished adults. But leading trade associations have defended the safety and efficacy of the products, calling the editorial, ‘close-minded, ‘one-sided’ and ‘overblown.’

The article refers to studies published in a recent issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. These showed that multivitamin supplements did nothing to prevent heart attacks or cancer, or improve cognitive function.

I would feel sorry for supplement manufacturers, if they hadn’t brought this on themselves.

First, they lobbied to get Congress to pass the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). This lets them advertise the benefits of supplements without much in the way of scientific substantiation. It also excused the FDA from doing much regulation.

But DSHEA also required research. Oops. Although the point of asking for research was to demonstrate the benefits of supplements, things haven’t worked out that way. Most of the research shows no benefit and, sometimes, harm.

And investigations like this one show what many have long suspected. Without federal oversight, some supplement manufacturers will do whatever they can get away with.

Fortunately, rice substituted for St. John’s Wort is harmless and hardly matters, since St. John’s Wort doesn’t seem to do much anyway.

Vitamin Supplements

The latest review of the benefits—or lack thereof—of vitamin supplements for prevention of heart disease or cancer comes to cautious conclusions.

Limited evidence supports any benefit from vitamin and mineral supplementation for the prevention of cancer or CVD. Two trials found a small, borderline-significant benefit from multivitamin supplements on cancer in men only and no effect on CVD.

Multivitamin supplements should not be expected, without the combination of a healthy lifestyle, to prevent chronic disease.

Dietary supplements are used by more than 150 million Americans on a daily basis. Research has shown that when taken in combination with other healthy lifestyle practices, such as consuming a wholesome diet and exercising regularly, people can benefit from dietary supplements.

Translation: if you consume a wholesome diet and exercise regularly, you really don’t need supplements. And if you are not doing those things, supplements won’t do any good.

As for the 150 million Americans who take supplements: the ones I know tell me that they don’t care what the science says; they feel better when they take the pills.

The FDA has announced that it will be studying the effects of nutrient-content claims on consumers attitudes about food products.

FDA does not encourage the addition of nutrients to certain food products (including sugars or snack foods such as [cookies] candies, and carbonated beverages). FDA is interested in studying whether fortification of these foods could cause consumers to believe that substituting fortified snack foods for more nutritious foods would ensure a nutritionally sound diet.

Here’s one of my favorite examples of what the FDA is talking about.

I’m guessing the FDA’s new research project is a response to increasing pressure from food companies to be allowed to add nutrients to cookies, candies, and soft drinks.

Food marketers know perfectly well that nutrients sell food products. The whole point of doing so is to be able to make nutrient-content claims on package labels.

The FDA has never been happy about the practice of adding nutrients to junk foods just to make them seem healthy. Its guidance includes what is commonly known as the “jelly bean rule.” You may not add nutrients to jelly beans to make them eligible to be used in school lunches.

But this does not stop food manufacturers—especially soft drink manufacturers—from trying. Hence: Vitamin Water (now owned by Coca-Cola).

Plenty of research demonstrates that nutrients sell food products. Any health or health-like claim on a food product—vitamins added, no trans fats, organic—makes people believe that the product has fewer calories and is a health food.

NutraIngredients.com reports frequently on current research and opinion on dietary supplements. Lots of people take these products and swear by them, but proving that they do much good is another matter. It has been hard to find evidence that they make healthy people—those who take them most often—any healthier.

Here are some recent NutraIngredient reports on this topic, largely reflecting views of the supplement industry.